Books / Crime Novels /
Peninsula Crimes

‘An intelligent, atmospheric police procedural…Fans of such gritty yet cerebral crime novelists such as Ian Rankin and Jack Harvey should be well pleased.’ Publishers Weekly
Summer on the Peninsula. The heat’s ramping up, the usual holiday madness is building. Detective Inspector Hal Challis is already recycling his shower water and starting to dread Christmas. But this year there’s something more. Women abducted and murdered on the Old Highway. A pall of fear over the scorched paddocks. The media are demanding answers—and Challis’s sleepy beat is set to explode.

‘ Taut and terrific, Kittyhawk Down is crime fiction at its best.’ Age
An unidentified man is fished out of the sea with an anchor strapped to his waist. And for Detective Inspector Hal Challis, this sparks the beginning of a chilling series of shotgun killings. As Challis and his partner, Detective Sergeant Ellen Destry, investigate, a farmer on the Peninsula erupts into violence and becomes the target of a massive manhunt. Then Challis finds some aerial photographs in the possession of his friend Kitty linking her to the murders…

‘ Crime fiction at its riveting best.’ Women’s Day
The coastal community of Waterloo seems an improbable setting for sex parties, blackmail and murder, but then D. I. Hal Challis and D. S. Ellen Destry are called to investigate the brutal slaying of Janine McQuarrie—shot in a deserted country lane while her seven-year-old daughter looked on. It doesn’t help that Janine’s father-in-law is Challis and Destry’s superior and that the progress of the police is hampered by lies and secrets on all sides. Everybody has something to hide this winter. And someone in Waterloo looks determined to kill again.

‘This instalment puts Disher up on the world stage among the best in the business at this style of crime fiction.’ Age

Winner, Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction, 2007
Ten-year-old Katie Blasko is missing. Detective Sergeant Ellen Destry, alert to rumours of a paedophile ring operating on the Peninsula, is thinking abduction. Her colleagues are thinking bad family, truancy. Her boss is thinking about the media. And everyone, including Ellen, is wondering whether she’s good enough to handle this without Detective Inspector Challis. But Hal Challis is a thousand kilometres away, with his dying father. Ellen Destry’s leading the team on her own. And if she’s right, Katie Blasko is running out of time.

‘Masterful…The action is taut and every line of dialogue rings as clearly as a bell. Blood Moon is a fine example of just how good crime writing can be.’ Australian

Winner, Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction, 2009
When hordes of eighteen-year-old schoolies descend on the Mornington Peninsula, the overstretched police of Waterloo expect reports of party drugs and underage drinkers. What they don’t count on is a brutal bashing that attracts political attention. Newly embarked on a relationship with his sergeant, Ellen Destry, Detective Inspector Challis doesn’t really need the brass looking over his shoulder. Then a bludgeoned corpse is found, and it becomes clear something much darker than adolescent mischief has befallen the idyllic coastal town.

‘With so many exhibitionist forensic experts showing off their extraordinary skills, it’s a rare pleasure to sit down to a traditional detective story in which solid police work solves a crime. Inspector Hal Challis is very much in charge of the operations in an excellent Australian series written by Garry Disher.’ New York Times
Hal Challis is in trouble: he’s been carpeted by the boss for speaking out about police budget cuts and is desperately missing his lover, Ellen Destry, who is overseas on a study tour. But there’s plenty to keep his mind off his problems. A rapist in police uniform is stalking Challis’s Peninsula beat and a serial armed robber is headed in his direction. Not to mention a very clever, very mysterious female cat burglar who may or may not be planning something on Challis’s patch.

‘Disher is a quietly compelling writer whose new novel, Signal Loss, caused me to set everything else aside, pulling my attention away from the competition.’ LA Review of Books
A small bushfire, but nasty enough for ice cooks to abandon their lab—fatal, too. But when the bodies in the burnt-out Mercedes prove to be a pair of Sydney hitmen, Detective Inspector Hal Challis’s inquiries into a local ice epidemic take a darker turn. Meanwhile, Ellen Destry, head of the new sex crimes unit, finds herself not only juggling the personalities of her team but hunting a serial rapist who leaves no evidence behind.